Secretary-General to address Geneva-based human rights, trade bodies next week

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will travel on Monday to Geneva, where he will address the seventh session of the Human Rights Council as well as the executive session of the board of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

“The Secretary-General is putting particular emphasis this year on human rights issues, as we mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights,” his spokesperson, Michele Montas, told journalists today.

“He looks to the Human Rights Council to make every effort to meet the expectations of the international community, and to strengthen and make effective the Universal Periodic Review to the fullest extent possible,” she added, referring to a new mechanism which allows the human rights records of every country to be scrutinized.

Before leaving for Geneva, Mr. Ban will travel on Friday to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, where he has been invited by former United States President George Herbert Walker Bush to give a lecture on US-UN relations.